


In the circumference of the sky

by ca_te



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ca_te/pseuds/ca_te
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written on 25 August 2010. Sligtly Au. Narrated from Ianto's POV.<br/>Warnings: spoilers from ep. 1x04,1x05,1x06</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written on 25 August 2010. Sligtly Au. Narrated from Ianto's POV.  
> Warnings: spoilers from ep. 1x04,1x05,1x06

Ianto straightened his tie and took a deep breath. A persistent wind was blowing over the surface of the water. The bay was a mass of blue and white, the air was heavy. Ianto looked at the grey clouds gathering in the circumference of the sky. It was both terrifying and relieving to be there again, just few steps away from the door of the tourist office.

 

After Lisa's death he had spent a week at home, as Jack had ordered him. The first days he had just lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling pain running up and down his body like a crazy animal, tears streaming down his cheeks over and over till he hadn't known anymore the reason why he was crying. The sight of Lisa's body surrounded by blood and the sight of Jack pointing his gun at him, his eyes hard and condemning had mixed up into his mind, till they had ended knotted up together. It had been on a night somewhere in the middle of the week, it had been long past midnight. He had got up and pushed himself under the shower. He didn't know for how long he had remained under the water, letting it wipe away all the blood and sweat and sorrow which had encrusted it. Then he had prepared coffee and put away all the photographs of Lisa which he had in his flat. He had stuck them away in a cartoon box which he had pushed deep at the back of his wardrobe.

 

Ianto cast a last look towards the bay and then pushed open the wooden door. The tourist office was silent, the only sound was the ticking of the clock. He walked up behind the counter and flipped the pages of the calendar finding the right date. He let his hands move automatically over the desk arranging papers and putting pens back in place. When there wasn't anything left to tidy he pressed his hands flat against the wooden surface and took a deep breath. Air twirled inside his lungs and a shiver ran down his spine as he realized again how scared he was. How he just wanted to go back in time, to have Jack smile at him and flirt with him without knowing the truth, without Lisa's blood between them. It was selfish and wrong to think like that, he knew it, but it was as if every cell in his body was craving for contact and safety.

It started to rain, drops of water were hitting violently the glass of the windows. Ianto turned and opened the door to the Hub. The siren drilled through his eardrums and he closed his eyes for an instant, to make the sound go away, to make the world fade away. When he opened them again the half-light of the Hub was surrounding him, the sounds of the computers crawling all around. He knew that he should but it was as if some magnet was pulling at him and he couldn't help to lift his gaze towards Jack's office. And there Jack was, as Ianto had felt. He couldn't bring himself to say anything, he just stared at the Captain, waiting for a sign. When Jack nodded both relief and sadness fell over him, he wondered how it could be possible for a single gesture to contain all that forgiveness and all that coldness at the same time. He had gotten closer to Jack to save a place for himself at the Hub, to have a place where it was possible to hide and take care of Lisa. But it wouldn't make any sense to deny how attracted by the Captain he had felt since the night when they had caught Myfanwy, or how much he had grown fond of him, of his strength and also of that slight sadness underneath it.

Ianto nodded back and quickly averted his gaze. He moved around the place gathering plastic cups and crumbled papers feeling as if he was walking underwater. He caught Tosh glancing in his direction more than once, it seemed to him that there was a sparkle of sympathy in her eyes, but he didn't dare to hope for it. He continued to do what he had always done, tidying and preparing coffees, but he didn't meet the others' eyes when he delivered the mugs. When it was Jack's turn Ianto climbed the stairs up to his office, feeling as if his body was heavier than ever. He stopped in front of the door, trying to calm himself. He knew that Gwen was in there too, he didn't want her to see his distress, he didn't want her to see his longing. He slightly shook his head and knocked. Jack's voice came hard through the door, and it was like a punch in the stomach. Ianto straightened himself and pushed the door open. He kept his gaze low, focusing on his own shoes and on the concrete of the floor. He stopped in front of the desk and allowed himself to lift his gaze just a bit, till he could see the surface of the desk. His eyes met Jack's hands, the same warm hands which had held and caressed him. He put the mugs on the desk, one for Jack and one for Gwen, then he turned. He was reaching for the door when Gwen's voice reached him.

"Thank you, Ianto."

He felt something hot pressing at the back of his eyes as the realization that Jack wasn't going to talk to him hit him hard. He nodded without turning and closed the door behind his back.

 

He was in the kitchenette, hastily trying to dry the few traitorous tears that had escaped, when he felt a gently hand resting on his shoulder. He turned, his heart in his throat, and his eyes met Tosh's.

He opened his mouth to tell her that it was alright, that he was just tired but she started to speak first, her fingers squeezing his shoulder gently.

"It will take a bit of time, but it's going to be alright, Ianto."

Gratitude bubbled up inside of him and he couldn't help to reach out and cover Tosh's hand with his own. Tosh smiled at him, and Ianto really wanted to believe that she was right, even though he was scared by the thought of how much time it would take for things to settle down, if they ever would.


	2. Part 2

Ianto watched as the coffee dripped into the two mugs which he had prepared. Days had passed and he could feel the pain dulling, but it was still there, persistent, hidden between his heart and his lungs. The world kept spinning, people kept living, walking in the Plass above their heads. But it still wasn't right, it was as if things were slightly out of axis, as if their meanings had disappeared. Same aliens, same routine, and yet Ianto knew that he had lost focus on who he was, on what he was doing there. Many times since he had come back to work he had asked himself why he was still there, why he decided to remain in the same place where he had seen Lisa die. It had frightened him to discover that the answer had been firm and clear under the water of his mind since the beginning. Because he had never understood the world, since when he was a kid and that had been the reason why he had let the flow push him around, why he had left his house after his father's death, just to wander around in the stomach of London. Without an aim, without a meaning. Till he found Torchwood One and Lisa, and it had been a small sparkle in the uncertainty. And when they had been about to disappear he had been so lucky to find Jack. It was incredible how his anchor to reality was a man who was not supposed to be on Earth, a paradox which destiny had thrown into the vortex of the universe.

Ianto pushed the off button and put the mugs on the same tray. He thought that he wanted his reality back, that he wanted Jack back. As every day the others spent most of the day out, running after some alien which the Rift had spat out. He was in the archives when the siren echoed announcing that they were back. He didn't go upstairs, there was no need of doing it. Things were slowly adjusting with Tosh and the others, but he could feel that it was still a bit difficult for them to have him around too much, as if they still hadn't gotten used to it. It made him feel as he had on his first day of work, when for Owen, Suzie and Tosh he had been just a random tea-boy, not Ianto, just a quirk of their boss.

Going through the documents, readjusting them in a more suitable order, or at least an order which he could master quickly and efficiently, he lost count of the hours. He stopped only when his sight wobbled slightly. He took the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index. When he entered the Hub almost all the lights were off, as were the computers, except for Tosh's one. The beeping of the Rift monitoring program made him think of a weird lullaby. He sighed with relief at the idea that he was alone in the Hub, he knew that it was actually insane, but the fact that he knew where everything was between those concrete walls made him feel safe, as if he was in his own personal cocoon. He walked up to Tosh's station to have a look at the latest reports. He smiled seeing how tidy her desk was, all the pens lined up, and the glasses beside them. There was a photograph which he hadn't seen before, there was a young Tosh, probably in her teens with a short Japanese woman, probably her mother. He brushed his fingers over the film pack. Tosh had been good to him in the past days, trying to reach out for him, even when he had spent entire days hidden in the archives or staring intently inside coffee mugs. Ianto had never felt a particular desire to open up with other people, he had spent too much time on his own in the period of life when you're supposed to make friends and to open yourself up to the world. He had Rhiannon, but she was older, and too attached to their father to understand how he was feeling most of the time.

An insistent bip brought him out of the net of his thoughts, he focused his attention on the monitor, a window had opened out of nowhere. Ianto squeezed his eyes, it seemed a weather chart, and if he wasn't mistaken those coloured curves meant that some strange atmospheric phenomenon had just taken place. He moved over to his desk to see if among the reports of the day there was something which could be connected to it. It made it feel at ease, to have something to do, to put his mind at work with something useful, and not only thoughts which couldn't lead him anywhere and hopes.

He was waling back towards Tosh's desk, flipping through a folder when he heard Jack's voice. For an instant he thought that his mind was playing tricks on him, but when he turned the Captain was actually standing there, hands in his pockets and a gentle smile on his lips. Ianto blinked and stared at Jack's lips, curved in what seemed to be a true smile, not a smirk or a grin, but actually a smile, gentle and uncertain.

"You're not supposed to be here."

Ianto looked at his shoes, the sensation of having Jack in front of him, talking to him, made something warm form inside of him. He lifted his gaze and couldn't stop himself from, hoping to do the right thing, to make Jack more comfortable, to start to sew up the tear which had opened between the two of them.

"Neither should you."

Since their first encounter Ianto had slowly learnt how Jack worked, he was still a great mystery and he probably would always be a puzzle without solution, but he knew at least the small things. How words and irony helped the Captain to feel in control and to relax. And indeed Jack flashed him another small smile. Ianto felt something tugging at him, as if the soft sparkling in Jack's eyes, the same eyes which had been so hard and cold during the last days, was disturbing his gravity. He swallowed and used all of his strength to turn and walk over to the computer again. He kept his eyes glued to the screen as his heart speeded up at the sound of Jack's steps over the concrete floor. Then Jack's hand came, warm and firm against his back, and Ianto's thoughts derailed. All the longing which he had stored up, the guilt, the fear seemed to bubble up inside of him. He turned abruptly, just in time to see Jack lowering his gaze. He could feel the tension, the uncertainty twirling between them, between the palm of Jack's hand and his own back.

"So, what do we have here?"

Jack's breath lingered behind his ear and Ianto quickly turned to face the screen again. He tried to concentrate but all he could think about, all he could feel was Jack's hand. But then in an instant it was gone again. Ianto instantly missed the contact, but he knew that it had been much more than what he could hope for. It was a tiny sparkle, it was something small, probably just a grain of dust but Ianto wanted to treasure it. Life had tried to crush his hopes since when he was a kid and his father had told him that he was an idiot because he wanted to be an astronaut when he would grow up. It had done it again with Lisa, it might do it with Jack, but Ianto knew that he was just a human being, he just couldn't suppress that wish, that desire, which Jack's smile had planted inside of him.

*

Ianto was sitting at his desk, the Hub was silent after all the others had left. He had decided to remain because he could still feel himself shake at the thought of what he had seen, at all the emotions which had rammed through him, like a storm hitting his insides. He hadn't trust himself to go back to his flat alone, the tingling sensation of something unknown and dangerous still lingering at the corner of his mind and eyes, as Jack had told them. And then, then there was Jack, Ianto had never seen him so broken before, as a glass shattered into pieces. Ianto understood how the others had felt, he didn't want to judge them, but he didn't feel like judging Jack neither. He knew that he had any right to do it.

He leant back in his chair and bit his lower lip. There was a memory stuck between the folds of his brain, and it was the memory of Jack holding Estelle lifeless body, cradling her gently, as if she was the most precious thing on Earth. He had heard him telling Gwen how he had loved her at first sight. Ianto knew that it was stupid, but it had made him break a bit on the inside, the idea that probably Jack would never talk about him with that love in his voice, behind his every word. He had never thought that he would have wanted something like that for Jack, it had just dabbling, there still had been Lisa for him, and he was scared to realize how deep what he felt for Jack truly went. He shook his head, knowing that he had messed it all up, even the tiniest chance that he could have had.

He got up to fetch the tea that he had left to boil in the kitchenette and then headed to Jack's office. No sound had came from there in the last hours, but Ianto knew that Jack was there, probably sitting at his desk, looking at old photographs. He had seen the tin box while he had been tidying the office, he had opened it once, even though he hadn't flipped through the photos. That was Jack's world, and it was his to keep. He knocked and when no answer came he gently pushed open the door anyways. His eyes met Jack's deep ones. He slowly walked up to the desk. Jack quirked an eyebrow and Ianto offered him a small smile, knowing that it would never be enough, but wanting to do something for him.

"I thought that tea would be a better choice for once."

He took the mug and put it down on the table. Jack nodded at him. Ianto turned and walked towards the door, trying to fight the desire of pulling Jack close, and whispering to him that he was there, that he didn't judge him.

"Ianto…"

Jack's voice was low, it sent shivers down Ianto's spine. He turned.

"Yes, sir?"

It hurt to call him like that, he missed the feel of Jack's name on his tongue.

"Thank you, Ianto. And it's alright if you go back to calling me Jack"

And there truly was gratitude behind his words, and a tiny sparkle of something more which Ianto didn't want to name, because maybe he was imagining things. He just smiled a shy smile and nodded. Ianto knew that what had started to grow inside of him was something that Jack couldn't answer to, but after all the loneliness and the cold, just the idea of gentle words and touches were enough.

When he exited the tourists office he looked up to the sky, it was clear and starts were looking down at him. For the first time since when he had came back he thought that hoping was the right thing to do, and he shyly smiled at the starry circumference of the sky.


	3. Part 3

Ianto looked at the landscape running out of the window. The pale green of the grass and the pale azure of the sky blurring together. It was weird to be so close to the others, to hear them talking and joking again, as the radio was pouring some random pop song into the car. He cast a quick glance in Jack's direction. The Captain was driving, and his eyes were focused on the road, they had that determined look in them that Ianto had come to admire. He watched as the corner of his mouth quirked up as Owen kept going on about how the countryside sucked. Ianto leant back against the seat and went back to look out of the window. An unpleasant sensation had attacked his stomach as he thought that since that night, when he had seen a shadow of longing behind Jack's words and eyes, nothing much had changed. Jack hadn't tried to reach out for him more than he had. They had gone back to talk to each other, but Ianto could still fill a cold, thick surface between them. He kept hitting it again and again, and yet he was still driven towards Jack, like a moth attracted by the light on a dark night.  
He closed his eyes, the desire to be strong enough to let go hitting him again.

Ianto knew that he wouldn't be able to remain silent when Gwen brought up that game. To hurt more was not the fact that she had brought it up without thinking, but he fact that he knew that he wouldn't be able to lie or to just stay silent, not when the answers were so obvious, not when the only one who could offer him a breath of life, a new start, was the man who was sitting in front of him, the man who had used to touch him and kiss him and that now seemed as far away as a start. Shining over him from light years away.  
Lisa's name just rolled over his tongue and Ianto watched as it feel among them. He watched Gwen's face, and Tosh's and Owen's. He tried not to look at Jack. He stared at his hands on his knees for a while, trying to be strong enough. But in the end he couldn't help to lift his gaze. First he focused on Jack's mouth, his lips a tight line, then his eyes, two hard blue disks. Ianto thought that probably he had disappointed him, and that flick at the back of Jack's eyes couldn't be pain, he certainly had mistaken, he probably had seen his own regrets reflected in those eyes that he wanted so much to look at him and shine as they used to. He turned and focused on the dry green of the hills surrounding them. He swallowed dry. He could feel something nagging at the back of his head. When he was a kid he used to sense when something was off, it was just a tingle at the back of his head. His father used to tell him that he was an idiot for believing to things like that. His father had always been like that, too distant, just to distant. Ianto shook his head, surprised that he had thought about his father, that the thought had managed to slip out of the corner of his mind where he kept it locked. He listened to Tosh chatting with Jack, wishing that he could talk to him like that too, without undertones and allusions and limits. But in the end it had never been like that between the two of them, since the very beginning. Ianto could see the red strings delimiting the depth and the width of their relationship, they had to be there, because he was too afraid to let Jack know. And he knew that Jack too was afraid of proximity, probably because being close to someone would mean more pain.  
*  
Ianto looked at the mess which whoever had taken their suv had done, and something clicked inside of him. It was the first time that he was on the field with the others, he knew that he was not like them, with their desire for the thrill, with their ability, but he wanted to try. He wanted to try for Jack, to show him that he wanted to help him, to be by his side. And something warm blossomed inside Ianto's chest when he told Jack that he had already localized the suv and Jack looked at him with his blue irises filled with pride and gratefulness and something deeper and more difficult to catch. And that warm thing exploded into his heart as Jack gently squeezed his shoulder before he started to walk telling them to follow him.  
*  
Ianto looked at Tosh, wishing to be as strong as her, as prepared as her. He could feel his heart beating furiously into his chest as he let his eyes travel around the basement. The smell of the air seemed to scratch at his throat. He could feel the fear pooling at the bottom of his spine. He wished that Jack could be there. But he knew that he wasn't going to come. They should know how to deal with situations like that. Hell, he was supposed to know what to do, and yet he felt lost as a child. He hadn't even realized how dependent from the Captain he had been. He hid his face against the palms of his hands, Tosh's voice just a faraway echo. Jack couldn't be his only anchor, he was a mystery and he would always be, just out of reach, and Ianto knew that he should have never made him his North Star. Because Jack couldn't always be there.  
Before the link between them had been severed by the incident with Lisa, he had spent a nigh at the Hub, squeezed between Jack's warm and firm body and the wall of the bunker because the bed was too small for the two of them. Jack had absent-mindedly run his fingers through Ianto's hair and, his voice almost a whisper, he had talked to him about how he had used to travel around the stars with a man called the Doctor, and how he had been abandoned and found himself stuck on planet Earth. Ianto had been facing the wall, but he could hear the longing thick behind Jack's words. That had been the first time that he had understood how far away Jack was, just like one of the planets that the Captain had visited.  
Ianto suppressed a sob and got up, knowing that he needed to do something, even though he knew that he wasn't like the others, he had lived in the comfortable nest of papers and books and archives' drawers for too long. And he couldn't help it if something shattered and fell inside of him as he opened that fridge.  
*  
He could hear his blood roaring into his ears, as the sea had been roaring on that day when, only a few months after having been hired, he had taken the car and had driven till the cliff and had sat down, his diary on his legs, and had written about Jack till his hair had been soaked with sea water. It was as if someone was twisting his insides, the stench, the sight of all that blood and of the smiles on the villagers' faces. Pain and fear were burning in his throat, in his muscles, and for an instant he thought that he wouldn't be able to move. But then he turned and looked at Tosh, he could see fear twirling in her eyes, and he couldn't stand it. He didn't even think about it, words just slipped out from between his lips.  
"You're ready to run?"  
When he had been willing to fight for Lisa it had been because he loved her, because her life would have meant his own life, would have meant getting back what Torchwood had pulled away from their hands. But the desire of seeing Jack and Tosh and the others safe was pure, and deep, and it hurt because Ianto didn't care about his own happiness and his own life when it came to them. He bit his lower lip, even after all the years that he had lived, the things which he had seen, even when his father's harsh words were still burning inside his head, he had made the mistake of letting them crawl under his skin more that he ought to. And well when it came to Jack he had let him dig a hole right in the centre of his heart.  
He looked as the man moved closer to Tosh, and he fought the desire to reach out and hit him hard, he waited till he moved towards him. In an instant the fear that had been chewing at him disappeared, he knew what he had to do to save Tosh, so he just did. And the pain of being hit over and over again didn't matter.  
*  
Ianto closed his eyes as the sound of Jack firing the gun echoed in the room, washing over him. He hid his face against Gwen's shoulder, feeling grateful for the fear he was feeling, for the pain even, for Gwen's warmth, because it all meant that he was still there, that they had came for him.

When he was outside he gulped down air, it burned his throat and dilated his lungs. He stumbled over to the suv and sat down. He stared at the grass beneath his feet, it was of a pale shade of green, it made him think about frailty. Something jumped up and down his throat as Jack's shoes entered his field of view. Ianto slowly lifted his gaze, feeling something growing brighter and brighter inside of him at every inch of Jack on which he rested his eyes. Because Jack was there, standing right in front of him, and it didn't matter if things had gone wrong between them, in that moment all that mattered to Ianto was that he was still beside Jack, still in the magnetic field of the man he had fallen in love with, without even realizing it.  
Ianto was startled by the feeling of Jack's fingers tilting up his chin, till all that Ianto could see were Jack's blue eyes and behind them the pale circumference of the sky. The Captain gently cupped his cheek, his hand warm against Ianto's skin. He didn't say anything, not even a single word. He just brushed his thumb over Ianto's cheek over and over.

On that night Jack touched him again, slowly and with care, as if he was mapping an uncharted territory, and Ianto felt life pulsing again inside of him, as Jack's fingers ran along the contours of his bruises, over the hills of his ribs.  
When Jack slowly pushed inside of him Ianto felt his whole world slot into place again. He could feel the tears forming, as they had never done, not even the first time with the Captain. And Ianto knew the reason, he knew that it was the first time that having Jack inside of him meant making love and not having sex. He squeezed his eyes shut and dig his fingers in Jack's shoulders, kissing away the moan that had escaped the older man's lips.

On that night Ianto listened to Jack's regular breath as he slept, he watched Jack's lips stretched in a peaceful smile and he set his feeling and hopes and wishes free and they flew out, as small birds which had been kept in a cage. Ianto imagined that they could fly high enough to exit the Hub, high enough to reach the silent and blue circumference of the sky, high enough to reach the unexplored planet that Jack was.


End file.
